Chandigarh Social Science Congress 2018 Inaugurated

Chandigarh, March 15, 2018: Chandigarh Social Science Congress (CHASSCONG-2018) on the theme “Discourse of Citizenship on Contemporary India” kicked off at Panjab University, here today.
The keynote was delivered by Prof.Sanjay Chaturvedi Political Science, PU on the topic of “Denizens of Anthropocene: Climate refugees” where he dilated upon – a) various theoretical perspectives associated with citizens in the state-centric and realistic dialogues; b) the ‘climate refugee’ as a forced migrant, as victims of environmental disruptions, state-centered cartography (how contours of population and geography are mapped rather than recorded as they exist). His main conclusion was that while constitutional citizenship is build around territory, ecological citizenship encourages transcending territory. He recommended collective behavioral changes in human beings for a sustainable future.
Earlier, Professor Akshaya Kumar, Co-ordinator, CHASSCONG-2018while introducing the congress, stressed on the nature of a responsible citizen of being ever ready to ask questions and challenge the status quo. He referred to the possibility of constituting an autonomous republic of the self, a re-alliance between the self and the alienated ‘other’.
Professor Arun K. Grover, Vice Chancellor,PU in his address emphasized on building links between academia, alumni and collaring them together to form a productive union of minds. He also exhorted the scholars to focus on research and findings that can become effective inputs for the policy makers.
The first plenary session turned into a dialogic presentation by Prof. Leon Morenas (School of Planning and Architecture re and also a fellow as IIAS, Shimla) and AnkurSarin (IIM, Ahemdabad) who opened up the discussion of Big Data as a valuable resources and responsibility of academia, respectively. Prof. Morenas talked on how corporation capitalized on the collected data of the consumer-citizens in the Indian Context. The political and judicial decisions are seen at cross-purpose with a larger capital driven market economy where people have become the ‘new commodity’. Teasing out the complexities of implementation of Biometric and AADHAR, he included discussions on what was the role of institutions in formulating citizens. Prof. Sarin gave a clarion call for the academics to become interventionist in discourses of citizenship. He emphasized how the curriculum was distancing people from social realities and in this fracture, scholars could not become passive bystanders. He concluded that in everyday life, academics need to reconcile this fracture and ought to give up perpetuating such structures which are not sustainable for a collective co-existence.